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So about the "____ sucks" mindset...

I think you all know what I'm talking about. We all have a favorite game or two. Something that shaped us, helped us grow and stuff. Fills us with a swell of various emotions when it's mentioned. But then... Depending on what game that is.... You have to put up with people talking s*** about it. Some more than others. And that can actually hurt sometimes. Like... These people are insulting something very near and dear to you, as close as a childhood mentor, friend or family. It can be hard for some people to cope with it and not lash out, our at the very least not get angry.

I know mine is FFIX. Tomb Raider 3 is a close second. While the latter simply gave me a female role model to help shape me as a woman (and also love History), ffix gave me... So many things. It actually helped me to prepare myself emotionally for my father's inevitable death (type 1 diabetic... Lost to kidney failure in the end), using aspects of Vivi, Eiko Garnet and even Kuja's situations as a raw example. The thought of death and loss scared me for the longest freaking time and FFIX helped me to come to terms with it...as much as a hypersensitive person can. There's a lot of other reasons why it's been such a huge influence on me, but... I'll save that for some other thread some other time. So, when people throw shade and say in the midst literal of words that it sucks, you bet it's gonna piss me off and want to defend it. I'm just glad I'm able to back off and vent to friends about it rather than argue with people that wouldn't care what i have to say, no matter how accurate or well-worded my rebuttal may be

SO, of course, I'm wondering if I'm alone in this plight. There's gotta be others that has that one deeply influential game that they feel like they have to defend every new and then. I just wanna hear who's got that, what game, why that/those games... And how everyone reacts (our WOULD react) should their Best Game's honor be besmirched. I'd love to hear all about it.

Also, maybe it would help to examine the psychology of people that claim perfectly ok games "suck" as if it's some infallible fact. Maybe. :/

It can be difficult to listen to people bad mouth something you like, particularly if it had an impact on you and the desire to jump in and defend can be strong.

But, someone disliking something you like in no way diminishes the fact that you like it. And they may dislike some particular aspect that you loved, but that doesn't mean that you should love it any less. Also, the thing you love can have bad aspects, and acknowledging that it's not perfect is also completely acceptable and doesn't mean you should love it any less. I love plenty of things that aren't great in the grand scheme of things, but that's okay.

In the end, what I'm saying is - so what if someone says your favourite thing sucks? You still love it. And that's all that matters.

I tend to be the type who is well aware of the weaknesses in the titles I love, and I'm often the first to point them out as well. I generally only get defensive if I feel the "reason you suck speech" another gives it is invalid due to faulty logic, ignorance of the gameplay mechanics, or some obvious personal bias. Hyperbole is another issue, with IX being a wonderful example as I really just can't imagine the Trance mechanic being that much of a deal breaker as the complainers make it out to be.

At the end of the day though, people's opinions are their opinions, and as long as you like it, it shouldn't matter how others feel about it. Arguing about it is just a waste of time, which is why I try my best to stay above it nowadays.

Well, yes, opinions are definitely opinions. I can definitely be the better person and leave with the "so what? Still my favorite game" attitude. It's the right attitude to have. But I'm talking about something a little more virile. It's more... the frequency, impact, and shallowness of people saying "this sucks, and you're sinning by even playing it" and treating it as solid, unrefutable fact. It gets old and redundant and it spreads like a virus as the years crawl on and certain game design trends lose traction. ...Or, even, as new game designs GAIN traction. To the rancor of some oldschool gamers.

Take Tomb Raider for example. I've tried to find forums that aren't divided between oldschool TR and new-gen TR. While I generally dislike the direction Square Enix took with Tomb Raider, I don't think it "sucks" per se-- I simply think it could have been called "Lara Croft: Origins" instead, so that it wouldn't show up on the same bloody Google search front page as classic TR1. But there are others that flat-out put their cards on the table with that classic "this sucks and you people should never, ever play it because it is wrong and you are wrong" attitude. These are normally, if not always, fans of the originals.

On the other side, we have those who have never played the classics and started with the Square-Enix reboot , who tend to diss its predecessors without any regard to the impact they had. Some say it's too blocky or slow or Lara is too one-dimensional, not just for them, but for anyone at all. And while these arguments might hold up at least in the narrative, you can't ignore the fact that they will try to tell younger gamers trying to play it "oh, you'll just be disappointed. Don't even bother." These are people that leave lengthy, detailed, nasty reviews that actually would sound believable to outsiders.

On both sides, we have people-- girls mostly (it's silly, some might still be surprised by this-- certain stigmas live on I guess) that were or are being deeply affected by Lara Croft as a character, shaped and molded into someone headstrong and adventurous. However, it's so, SO hard to find these girls able to see eye to eye. I've yet to find a public discussion where people are interestedly exploring the differences between classic Lara's impact and how modern (TEEN) Lara is shaping the girls of today. Instead, it's all just arguments about ethics, gender politics, and which one's better or worse. Sad, really. :/

What I'm trying to say is... generally, people that openly say "___ sucks" are normally trying to get people siding with them, taking their word for it, agreeing with them, etc. The intention, usually, is to spread the word that "___ sucks", because they "know" that "___ sucks" because they're all Woke and all that. They know better. They don't know about the impact said thing has had on the people they're yelling at about this, but surely, unmistakably, they can't possibly be wrong.

I mean-- I know about this mindset not just because I've been subjected to it (harassed about it to the point where I had to tell someone to never come to my house for D&D again-- I'm not joking, he trash-talked me for liking final fantasy every freaking session it was rIDICULOUS), but because I was also one of those people. I caught myself trying to boss my sister out of playing FFXIII because I hated it and I felt as if she was just taking part in fueling the fire to promote it. I didn't want it to exist. I even went to my friends talking about how appalled I was by that game. Yikes... In the end my sister won that stupid argument, bought, and played FFXIII, and nowadays that doesn't matter to me. I'm ok with XIII, XIII-2 and Lightning Returns existing. I still have negative opinions about them-- they certainly aren't for me-- but I'm not going to jump down someone's throat for liking them, mentioning them, or playing them in my presence... That's stupid behavior.

In conclusion: It's not the negative opinions that I'm annoyed by. Everyone has the right to those and I'm able to ignore them. It's when opinions are warped by the hater's mind into "solid fact" that it becomes a problem. When someone turns to another person and says "you like X game mechanic? How STUPID can you get?"... And when the hate runs so deep that people are offended by a certain game and want to snuff it out of existence. And yeah... you'd be surprised how common that mindset is.
Either way, I have an easy enough time not talking to these people in the online world, regardless of the subject of their scrutiny. And I certainly don't know anyone personally that hates the FF franchise, let alone IX. ...Anymore, at least. :P

Yeah, I kinda thought maybe people didn't quite get what you were aiming at. And, granted their responses may well stay the same, but it seemed like you were talking about normal negative opinions on games you like. But what you really seem to be aiming at is formative experiences in gaming and opinion trains similar to neogaf, or 4chan, or 9gag, that are outright offended your game even exists. Let alone that someone might enjoy it

I haven't experienced anyone attacking my childhood or intelligence in that manner. But that kind of stuff either started with my generation or after. Mario vs Sonic and all that

Interestingly I came here specifically because of that mindset. My previous forum home had a rule to not discuss Final Fantasy in any fashion. Even for comparison or example. They called it the series which shall not be named. And you could get banned for talking about it at length

The forum creator, and echo chamber of mods all thought the series was terrible from the outset and hated how mainstream it was, because the took attention away from people noticing games they actually liked

The negativity was so vile I came here out of pure spite when I finally got fed up and left

Well see, this is where you get down to my "I'll only say something if your argument is terrible" thing. While I'm fine with some people making blanket statements because it's sadly just the nature of discourse, I do expect a decent argument when you get called out on the "well why would you say that?" but I've seen that type of nonsense before and I've had friends who would make these type of "you should feel bad for liking this". It's a terrible mindset and sadly it creates pocket communities of echo-chambers who simply convince themselves that their opinion is the only right one cause they scare away any dissenting opinions. What makes it really sad is that often they only represent a minority of the people of that community and the majority just ignores them which gives new people trying to get into the fandom the informed opinion that everyone within the community is like this.

There are several websites and fan community's I mine for information, but I rarely interact with, cause reading their forums or comment sections leaves a really bad impression. I talked with some people about how the seemingly toxic community the fandom generates is enough to make me stay clear of it. I've gotten into Rick and Morty the last few years but only because I make it a point to ignore the fandom cause they almost seem to be completely made up of snobbish assholes which is not really the case but the vitriol is large enough to make me not engage with the community to see otherwise. My first forum was a Xenogears/Xenosaga forum and my goodness if they weren't some of the most snobbish people I've come across on the internet outside of a community college forum or political discussion group. Yet in hindsight, I can see now that I was probably basing that more on about nine really vocally active members and the rest of the community was kind of chill. So yeah, it's a dumb mentality to have, and I know I've unfortunately engaged with it sometimes, though not necessarily by intention since I can be very hyberbolic as a joke when discussing things I dislike, and sometimes not joking...

Opinions are their own, even if they do suck and trigger your inner child to thrash the couch in your mind you like to chill at... having said that, they can talk all the smack they want on anything I may hold dear and true. I grew from it and it was a personal victory for me to celebrate, I can always saran wrap their toilet seat later on and get the last laugh.